Stamp Duty soars to 7.5% on homes over £400,000 in Wales

The Welsh Government has set out the new levels of stamp duty for the country from next year onwards - and the tax on homes costing above £400,000 will soar to 7.5 per cent compared to the current five per cent.

From next April Wales will be scrapping the term stamp duty and instead calling it Land Transaction Tax; with the new title will come new thresholds, and will mean that in some circumstances a buyer of a property in Wales will pay over £17,000 more stamp duty than a buyer of a similarly-priced property in England.

Currently the SDLT level in Wales are: 

- Up to £125,000 no tax

- Between £125k and £250k 2%

- Between £250k and £925k 5%

- Between £925k to £1.5m 10%

- Above £1.5m 12%

From next spring the new rates will be:

- Up to £150,000 no tax

- Between £150k and £250k 2.5%

- Between £250k and £400k 5%

- Between £400k and £750k 7.5%

- Between £750k to £1.5m 10%

- Above £1.5m 12%

The Labour-led Welsh government says nine out of ten homebuyers in Wales will either pay the same or less tax under the new version of stamp duty.

The National Association of Estate Agents has welcomed some of the change. 

“The rate up to which buyers won’t have to pay any stamp duty will be £150,000 from 2017 – the same value as the average house price in Wales. This means a huge number of house buyers will no longer have to pay any stamp duty at all. However, the move creates further bands for properties in excess of £250,000, and those properties will now attract a higher rate of stamp duty land tax than they would have previously” says chief executive Mark Hayward.